The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of butterfly bush grown for use as an ornamental plant in planted containers, garden borders, and for mass landscape planting. The new cultivar is known botanically as Gaura lindheimeri and will be referred to hereinafter by the cultivar name ‘Walsilfou’.
In spring 2015, the inventor observed within a growing crop of his white-flowered variety of Gaura Plant Named ‘Walsnofou’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 19,376) a naturally occurring whole plant mutation which exhibited gold-yellow and green variegated foliage. The growing crop was in production out-of-doors at the inventor's nursery in Arundel, West Sussex, United Kingdom. The inventor removed this gold-yellow and green mutated plant for further evaluation.
In summer 2015, the inventor observed that one branch of the gold-yellow and green variegated plant mutation exhibited a contrasting cream and green variegation. The inventor successfully rooted and established plants from vegetative stem cuttings taken from the cream and green variegated branch. The inventor has established that the discovered sport, ‘Walsilfou’ reproduces true to type in successive generations of asexual reproduction, without any reversion either to the gold-yellow variegation of its immediate sport parent, or to the all green foliage of the original parent ‘Walsnofou’.
All propagations have been carried out in an unheated greenhouse at the inventor's nursery in Arundel, United Kingdom using the method of stem cuttings. The inventor has confirmed that ‘Walsilfou’ is stable and reproduces true to type in successive generations of asexual reproduction.